The present disclosure relates generally to a system for evaluating the performance of the combined-cycle power plant and, more particularly, to a system that includes a generic model that factors in various possible configurations of a combined-cycle power plant.
The profitable operation of combined-cycle power plants is a difficult and complex problem to evaluate and optimize. The performance of modern combined-cycle power plants is strongly influenced by various factors including environmental factors (e.g., ambient temperature and pressure) and operational factors (e.g., power production levels and cogeneration steam load requirements). In the past, software tools were used to evaluate and optimize the operation of combined-cycle power plants. These software tools, however, were custom developed for each particular power plant. The software tools may have used standard software programs that were developed to predict performance of combined-cycle power plants under various conditions. Nevertheless, extensive customization was needed to integrate the effects of the predicted performance with calculations needed to optimize the operational economics of the power plant. It is a very difficult and cumbersome task to customize a plant model so that the optimal values for those operational control set points that an operator is normally free to adjust are identified for any given set of environmental, load, and economic conditions. Because of the cost associated with such customization, the custom software tools may have used simplified models which may have resulted in less than acceptable accuracy.
It would be desirable to have a software tool that could be used to evaluate optimal performance of a combined-cycle power plant under various conditions. Such a software tool should allow a user to specify the configuration of the plant. When properly evaluating and optimizing the operation of a combined-cycle power plant, the software tool should account for not only environmental and operational factors but, also key economic parameters (e.g., cost of fuel, price of electricity, and steam or heat export credits).